


Adjunct Talents

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:52:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Preliminaries, and prognostications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjunct Talents

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Katharos

 

 

"Uh, hello?" Carl stepped in, a little nervous, and looked around the empty apartment. "Anyone here?" He felt like an intruder, honestly, but the door had been open, and the guy on the phone had said he should come right over.

But the place looked empty. It was a nice apartment, Carl thought, especially since the manual said this guy wasn't any older than him: small, but the little kitchen was clean and bright, the living room stuffed with bookcases and furniture and, in the corner, a tall birdcage with a macaw sleeping on a perch. Carl considered his own dorm room, where he was experimenting with a beer-can-and-dirty-laundry motif, and winced.

From behind the closed door at the back of the apartment-- Carl assumed it led to the bedroom-- there came a series of dull thuds, a bang, and a puff of dust from under the door. It opened, and a tall, dark-haired guy tumbled out in an even bigger dust cloud. "Well, that didn't work," the guy remarked to no one in particular, and then he noticed Carl. "Oh! Sorry. I didn't hear you come in. You must be--"

"Carl, yeah," he finished for the guy. "And, uh, I'm on errantry, and I greet you. You're Tom, right?" The guy was still dusting himself off, but Carl couldn't help but notice that he was, dust and all, really kind of hot. And, if the manual was right, probably right alongside him on the Senior track, which was why his own Senior had sent him out to California for this consult.

Tom finally finished getting the dust out of his clothes and onto his rug. "Dai stiho, then, and well met and all of that. I've been looking at the precis in the manual, and I've gotta say, some of this worldgating stuff you're doing is way over my head." He grinned at Carl, revealing an awful lot of even white teeth. He had a great tan, too, Carl noticed, and silently, he asked the Powers whether they were _trying_ to make his life difficult. Tom just kept talking. "But I think I can help with the power-imbalance issue you've been having. I've been doing some research on Moebius spells, and I've got one in mind that just might--"

There was a rustle from the birdcage, and an amused-sounding voice said "Some host you are. You treat all your houseguests this way?" The macaw sidled towards them on its perch, its eyes bright.

Tom stopped, and looked a little sheepish. "Uh. Sorry."

"It's okay," said Carl; he'd worked with wizards who were a lot worse. His own Senior was notorious for carrying around his lunches in an otherspace pocket, because he plain forgot to eat if he didn't. "Why don't you introduce me to your friend, here?"

"Oh, that's Peach," Tom said. "I inherited her. She's just cranky because I won't let her tell fortunes to the neighbors' kids anymore; their parents were starting to wonder."

"Only because I'm accurate," said Peach. She looked Carl in the eye. "Avoid men in plaid shirts, by the way."

"I'll... be sure to do that?" said Carl.

"Ignore her, she just prognosticates to make trouble," said Tom. "Listen, why don't we grab some lunch, and you explain this worldgate thing you're working on to me. Sound good?"

"Sure does," said Carl. Tom grabbed a messenger bag off the coffee table, and his manual out of thin air. "Let's go."

As they left, Peach whistled to herself.

 


End file.
